Coyote Music Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
February 24, 2012 -
Austin, TX
Contact: David at david@wyattbrand.com or 512.904.9928
The program includes: Weather; Despair: Despair; Weather: Sonatensatz for Bass and Piano
Of Brahms, The 7:01 AM Sunrise, and The Mississippi River: Trio Atmosferico for Contrabassoon, Bass and Piano
Six Colors of Amontillado: Sonata in Forma Di 6 Impression-Bagatelles for Bass and Bassoon
At 1200 to 1400 Degrees, Diamonds Will Actually Burn: Trio Drammatico for Bass, Bassoon and Piano
(Program Subject To Addition)
Bassoonist Brad Balliett is a graduate of Rice University (as is Waddle), bassist Doug Balliett formerly serves as Asst. Principal Bass with the San Antonio Symphony, and Thomas B. Dawkins—who along with his work as a pianist, vocal coach, conductor vocalist, oboist, English hornist, bassoonist, contrabasooonist, organist, violist, percussionist and composer— also runs the company which publishes Waddle's music, TfV, Inc. of Boston, Mass, completing the circle of performers in this concert that define the aim of this series: to unite composers, performers and conductors of renown from the capital of the Lone Star state and from the Big Apple
BIOGRAPHIES
Brad Balliett, Bassoon
Described as an artistic 'instigator' by the New York Times, New York City-based bassoonist and composer Brad Balliett is gaining a reputation for unusual and thought-provoking programming, performance and composition. Currently Acting Principal Bassoon of the Hartford Symphony, Brad performs as a member of several groups around New York City, including Metropolis Ensemble, Signal, Anthony Braxton's Trillium Orchestra, and Ensemble ACJW. Devoted to expanding the bassoon's role in contemporary music, Brad performs frequently on the electric bassoon and has performed alongside Zakir Hussain and Miguel Zenon.
Brad's compositions have been performed around the country, including recent performances by Metropolis Ensemble, Cantori NY, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICEtank series). He was composer-in-residence for New York City's Chelsea Music Festival 2011, and presented two evening-length concerts of new music at Lucerne Festival 2011 with his hip-hop trio Oracle Hysterical.
Brad graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, where he studied composition with Elliot Gyger and John Harbison. He completed an M.M. in bassoon performance as a student of Benjamin Kamins at Rice University, and spent the following year playing bassoon in the Houston Symphony. A devoted teaching artist, Brad completed a fellowship with Carnegie Hall's program The Academy in 2009, through which he taught at PS 315 in Brooklyn and led composition projects for students in the South Bronx.
Doug Balliett, Bass
Doug Balliett is a prolific artist whose career has spanned classical performance, composition, rap, rock, spoken word, period performance and conducting. As a double bassist he has performed with Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble Modern Orchestra, the San Antonio Symphony (principal and assistant principal), and the Metropolis Ensemble. He has earned fellowships at Tanglewood, where he performed as principal bass under James Levine, Aspen (principal under Jane Glover), National Orchestral Institute (principal under Andrew Litton), National Repertory Orchestra (principal under Carl Topilow), and the Lucerne Academy (principal under Boulez). He also maintains an active life as a recitalist, including radio recitals, solo recitals throughout New York, and recital tours. Recent solo engagements have included The Time of Stones of Wielecki in Alice Tully Hall and Dragonetti’s Third Concerto at the Austrian Cultural Forum of New York. New challenges in Mr. Balliett's life include viola da gamba, violone, and Viennese bass.
Mr. Balliett’s compositions have been heard throughout the US, garnering several awards, including prizes in the Frederick Delius Competition, the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship, the Kirkland House Music Award, and Harvard’s first annual Artist Development Grant. Recent compositional projects include a late-night events at the Chelsea Art Museum (as part of his continued residency at the Chelsea Music Festival) and the composer-in-residence Spotlight with The Oracle Hysterical at the Lucerne Festival, where he and his collaborators presented an evening of Grimm songs and a new hip-hopera based on Melville’s Billy Budd. In 2010 Mr. Balliett composed, produced and conducted his popera seria Lucretia. His “virtuoso rapping” was praised by San Antonio Express-News. The work was recently revived at New York University. Mr. Balliett graduated from Harvard in 2007 with high honors and is currently pursuing a master’s at The Juilliard School in Historical Performance.
Thomas B. Dawkins, Piano
Thomas Dawkins is a magna cum laude graduate in Music with Highest Honors from Brandeis University, where he became the first winner of the Ira Gershwin Prize for excellence in musical performance. He has appeared as piano soloist with several area orchestras including the New England Philharmonic, Brandeis Symphony Orchestra and the Longy School Preparatory Orchestra, is currently the keyboardist for the Concord Orchestra (most recently playing the demanding piano part in Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka) and has given solo recitals around Massachusetts, including at the Newton Free Library. Also a respected collaborative pianist and vocal coach, he maintains a private studio and has worked at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge and with the studios of Robert Honeysucker, Pamela Wolfe, and D’Anna Fortunato. In collaborations with his colleagues, he has performed at MIT, the Longy School of Music, Brandeis University, the Peabody Institute Library, the Lexington First Church concert series, the International Rachmaninoff Russian Music Festival, the Lexington Museum of Our National Heritage (as a guest artist with Lexington Ballet Theater), and many more. He is also in his fourth year as organist and choir director for the Congregational Church of Harvard, UCC.
As a classical singer, he is a member of the choruses of both the Handel & Haydn Society (with whom he has made recordings of Mozart’s Mass in c and Requiem) and Boston Baroque, and has also sung as a bass-baritone soloist with Mass Theatrica (Schaunard in La Bohème, Father in Hansel and Gretel), Worcester Opera Works (Pooh-Bah in Mikado, for which he received the accolade of being “a resonant marvel”), Friends of the Performing Arts in Concord (Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Pish-Tush in Mikado, Messiah), Longwood Opera, Chorus Pro Musica (Messiah), Paul Madore Chorale (Fauré Requiem, Beethoven Mass in C, Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem), The Master Singers of Lexington (Hovahness Look Toward the Sea), Nashoba Chorale (the title role in Dido and Aeneas), Belmont Open Sings (Haydn Paukenmesse, Mozart Mass in c), Boston Repertory Orchestra (Beethoven Ninth Symphony), Assabet Valley Mastersingers (Messiah), and The Masterworks Chorale (Bach Mass in b minor, Beethoven Mass in C, Messiah). In the past, he was a member of The Orpheus Singers, Opera Aperta and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops). He has most notably sung in recital at the Salem Arts Festival, the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at the Longfellow House.
Mr. Dawkins has appeared as a conductor and music director with the MIT Gilbert & Sullivan Players (Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard, Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera), at the Salem Arts Festival (Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate), leading three operas at the New England Gilbert & Sullivan Society 35th Anniversary Sing-Out (Ruddigore, The Pirates of Penzance, and Utopia, Ltd.), and at Mass Theatrica (Iolanthe and programs of Bernstein and Rodgers & Hart). He is also a professional wind player having performed on bassoon, contrabassoon, saxophone, oboe and English horn with ensembles such as Symphony Pro Musica, the Civic Symphony Orchestra of Boston, the Concord Orchestra (where he was acting principal bassoon), the Harvard Summer School Orchestra, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, and the Minuteman Chamber Orchestra. He played timpani and percussion with a dozen ensembles, and has also pinch-hit as a violist from time to time.
About P. Kellach Waddle
P. Kellach Waddle enjoys a widely lauded career as a solo bassist, composer, chamber musician, orchestra musician, conductor, and concert director. His music has been performed over 700 times in nearly 40 states and in 10 foreign countries. With over 40 premieres scheduled for the calendar year 2011 alone (ranging from solo works to chamber works to pieces for full orchestra and now over 370 works composed as of Fall 2011), Waddle continues to maintain his position as one of the most prolific and performed composers of his generation. He has been called “… an amazing, incredible virtuoso…” by famed Austin radio personality John Aielli; and after his ovation-garnering solo concert at the 2009 International Society of Bassists Symposium, convention officials declared “… (Waddle) is now obviously one of the great solo bassists of the world.”
Waddle has continued to achieve a lifetime goal of following in the footsteps of such composers at Paul Hindemith and Lars-Erik Larsson by writing a concerto, sonata or major chamber music part for every single standard orchestral instrument except for Timpani. Waddle has been a member of numerous professional and festival orchestras including his current position with The Austin Symphony, which he has held since 1992. He has been nominated three times as a possible finalist for The Pulitzer Prize in Music and twice nominated for State of Texas Musician of The Year. He also serves as the “part-time Bach” in his position as Composer/Artist in Residence at Ascension Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas.
Mr. Waddle’s music has been published exclusively by TfV Inc. of Concord, Massachusetts and Wyatt Brand of Austin, Texas manages his publicity. Both of these companies are proud to be commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Waddle’s first published words during the 2011-12 season. Reviews of Waddle’s playing in recent solo concerts in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia cited his performances as " magnificent", " amazing", " inspiring" and "creatively thrilling." The March 2011 premiere of his orchestral work "A Walk Through The Vampire’s Garden" in Maryland was cited as " compelling.. interesting… magnificent and mesmerizing…" paving the way for more orchestral music of Waddle’s being premiered along with his regular plethora of solo and chamber music during the 2011-12 season.
About PKWproductions
PKWproductions continues to forge itself into a major presence in the crowded Austin classical music scene. With an emphasis on collaboration between art forms and breaking the “fourth wall” of dogma that intimidates many possible listeners of this genre of music, PKWproductions continues to draw both established and new audiences through innovative programming. Collaborations have included lectures on art given by Waddle before premieres of new musical works about the art, discussions on literary works previewing original concerts inspired by the books in a series now held at BookPeople, and a series of often sold-out “Music and a Movie” concerts in conjunction with Alamo Drafthouse.
Also under the PKWproductions umbrella is another series entitled “The (instrument[s]) according to PKW”—a set of chamber concerts that feature Waddle’s works for a particular instrument or set of instruments. Along with unusual programming such as music by warhorse composers in new instrumentations (music by Mozart for four double basses, music by Tchaikovsky for four trumpets, etc.) and one or more world premieres written by both PKW and host of other prominent local composers at every concert, PKWproductions continues to carve a unique niche in the Austin musical landscape for both performers and audiences alike.